


Chuck Vs Moving On

by Alexharrier



Category: Chuck (TV)
Genre: Memory Loss, but..., not a fix, that damn ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-09
Updated: 2015-02-09
Packaged: 2018-03-11 09:50:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3323021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alexharrier/pseuds/Alexharrier
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>after the kiss things are not miraculously fixed, and Chuck and Sarah talk about what to do tomorrow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chuck Vs Moving On

“--And right at that moment a microwave smashed into his head! I will never forget the miracle of flying appliances.”

The key fumbles in your hands as you laugh despite yourself. The imagery is beyond comical, brought to life again by his violent hand gestures and looks of recalled terror. He catches the smile and matches it with one of his own, a half smirk that broadens across the face. It’s hard to understand him. Not the words coming out of his mouth so much as the stories of chicken necked cowardice that changed an ordinary guy into some kind of hero. All the missions and rescues and lessons he remembers are caught behind a vale of darkness, an unassociated connection in your mind. That’s if they really happened though. It’s so hard to tell, there isn’t even a feeling of Déjà vu, it’s like it all happened to someone else.

“And then he said something that was just so, oh what was it, just one of those things that makes you wonder if John ever had a standup comedy run in the good old days” his eyes squint as he tries to remember. When he speaks again he rounds his shoulders and struggles to make his voice drop down a few keys with limited success. “ ‘Now that’s what I call moving some merchandise,’ and he grunts and starts to drag the body away and I’m like ‘who is this guy and what sandy gulf war hole did he crawl out of?’”

Looking down your teeth escape into a smile, and the door swings open in your hands. You hang the keys on the hook by the door and turn to say goodnight. But then he’s stopped laughing, and you feel the smile you’d been holding back disappear. He looks around the room with that haunted look, the evidence that is his most genuine tell: he remembers things about this hotel room. You look around too. The patterned walls and clean white bedspread accented with green chairs and white furniture, to you you’ve only been staying here a few days. To him there are years painted in this room. The feeling hurts, not being able to remember, hurts worse than your headaches, a pain in the chest that you’re failing in such an insurmountable way. 

You flinch away from it, from him, and say the words. “Thank you for talking with me. Goodnight Chuck.” 

It’s abrupt, and he knows it, but even now takes it in stride, understanding something about you that surpasses explanation. You’re running away, choosing to withdraw, extracting the bullet and dousing it in peroxide, but he lets it happen. His eyes search yours, giving permission. “goodnight.” He says.

The firm huff the door makes when it closes exhales the breath caught in your chest. _I don’t need to be excused to live my life_ you think as your eyes are hot with the weight of disembodied responsibility. The experience was like waking up one day to find your evil twin had eloped with some guy and left you in her place. But you look at the room again and remember how he saw it, how much was missing. All of that belonged to you too. And there were other small differences; five years leave their mark in more than memory. There were additional scars that had no stories, a difference in the tightness of your shoulders that felt like wearing a well-worn coat. 

You sit on the bed at a loss for what to do. Now that he was gone the weightlessness returned, an exchange from feeling guilty for the panic of your own personal brand of culture shock, and you’re not sure that it’s really any better. 

It’s alienating in such a strange way to not know who you were. Up until now you hadn’t given yourself time to think about it, because taking the time for yourself just isn’t something you’ve done before, that you can remember. When the General finished briefing the team and you’d gotten in your car that morning there was a moment when you panicked. There was nowhere to go, in a city that no longer belonged to you, that may as well have never been your base. The soldier in you needed a base, needed parameters, and so that’s what you looked for. But the call to the office confirmed your fears, after asking to report they’d transferred you to an unrecognized name and rank. The voice who spoke to you had replaced Graham. It was like having a new step dad. The shock of it had stopped you in your tracks, at a loss of words unable to answer his questions intelligently. It was during that fumble that your line was intercepted.

“Agent Walker.”

“General Beckman? I thought you were in the air--”

“I understand that you are trying to report for duty?” the stern voice stopped your protest, a mother catching a child in the cookie jar.

“I was just trying-”

“Walker you and I both know that with events as they are you will need to pass a psych evaluation prior to reporting, and before you try I know for a fact that they will not pass you with five years of memory loss, not before acclamation.”

“But what about the mission with Quinn? I was more than capable of handling myself in the field.” 

“I knew that you were going to go after Quinn with or without sanction. I preferred for you to have resources at your back this time around. I didn’t want to lose you again.” That had surprised you, not the reasoning but the genuine feeling behind it. “I have given you a gift walker. You have the time to figure this out. Visit your family; I know you have ways of finding them. And walker-”

“Yes?”

“Talk to chuck.”

And so you had. He was the one who found you on the beach, but you were going to talk to him eventually anyway. The experience had been surreal, he knew so much about you, and it makes you feel like you know so little. Absently you start to unpack your suitcase, when a white corner catches your eye from a pocket in the black lining. You pull out the photo; it’s of you and Chuck. Holding it, it seems so impossible, but irrefutable, evidence in your investigation of the past. You don’t carry pictures in your suitcase. You don’t have pictures of your mom for her safety, but you don’t even have any of your dad, sentimentality is just not in your program. But here it is, he’s hugging you and you’re laughing, somewhere on a back road outside the city and your instinct knows it’s real. And suddenly you can’t handle it anymore. 

When you open the door to the hallway you’re not sure what you’re looking for, but searching the space you find him at the end, waiting for the elevator. Head down he’s preoccupied with something, so the seconds pass while you try to decide what to do. The bell for the elevator rings, and the reflective doors slide apart. 

“Chuck!” It’s reflexive; his name comes before you can decide against it.

He turns and looks up from his phone, surprised. “Sarah?” Seeing you in the center of the hallway he leaves the elevator he jogs back down the hall.

You take a few steps toward him, but stop, feeling foolish your hands pick at the edges of the photo still in your hand, and your feet wander without direction. He pauses a few feet away, sensing your indignation. It isn’t the picture, it isn’t even how much he accommodates your mood, that makes you so frustrated. You can’t really be mad at him; it isn’t his fault after all, that he loves someone who doesn’t remember him. But you are mad, mad at Quinn still, and mad at yourself for not being able to fix it.

He’s still waiting, as you stare at the picture in your hands. So you spit it out. “Chuck, I want to remember.” Looking into his eyes he measures you, eyebrows knit, trying to understand. Why can’t you remember him? The pain intensifies, and you blink the tears from your eyes, shaking your head. “I want to remember where I’ve been the last five years, I want to remember what happened to Bryce, and Graham, and I want to remember you—but I can’t.”

You stand there and wipe under your eyes, frustrated by the emotion. 

“Hey,” he steps in hesitantly and you let him hug you. In a weird way it’s comforting. “Oh, hey. It’s okay.” Backing away arms outstretched like guardrails he says “Look do you have an idea of what you’re going to do tomorrow? Do you want to talk about it?” 

You clear your throat firming up your voice to speak. “Uh, yeah. That sounds good.”

“Okay.” He nods. “Okay. Uh, you wanna?” he gestures to the room still open behind you to finish the sentence. 

You follow his gesture and sit on one of the green chairs by the window; he closes the door softly and meanders across the room with his hands in his pockets, unsure. Now he seems to ask permission, trying not to intrude beyond your comfort zone. “Uh, have a seat.” You tell him.

He joins you at the table. You start to speak, but so does he.

“Chuck I don’t-”

“Sarah I just-” He puts his hands up. “Sorry. You first.”

How do you say this? “Chuck I’m sorry. I wish that somehow things were different, and I’m sorry that I’m not the person you used to know—“

He raises a hand gently and interrupts you. “Oh man, I should have gone first.” He gathers himself. “I don’t want you to feel any pressure. You know? I should have realized a lot sooner that this wasn’t going to be an easy thing especially for you. So you should know that I, I don’t expect anything from you.” He shakes his head and smiles, “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t hope that somehow telling you our story and a magical kiss could fix everything, but it doesn’t matter. You matter. What you’re going through is” he spreads his hands looking for the right word “enormous and you shouldn’t have to worry about, about letting me down.”

He surprised you again. You weren’t expecting that speech. You examine your hands and wonder what to say.

“Can I tell you something?” he breaks the silence. You look at him, and give a small nod.

“Sarah Walker you are the single most amazing person I have ever met. You just lost five years of your life, and you’re still the most beautiful kick ass spy who could save the nation in her sleep. You’re amazing. If it were me I would have lost it by now, in fact, in my short time as a spy I have come perilously close to losing sanity several times and I have never been through as much as you have.” He focuses on you again. “And I’m not just saying that because I’m in love with you. Okay? You are a strong person. You’re going to figure this out. I know you will.”

You don’t really know how to take the praise. Instead you examine the night skyline, lights illuminating the shapes of buildings out of the black. They reveal themselves as shadows that find definition in the points of light. 

“I tried to go back to work this morning, but Beckman won’t let me.” You say, taking the conversation in another direction.

He gives a little laugh. “Beckman can be very convincing.” 

“I don’t,” you focus on the window, keeping yourself level. “I don’t know what to do now. I don’t know where to go.” 

He leans back and thinks. “Well, thanks to our friends in Washington I recently came upon some money, and technically we still share an account. If you need to go somewhere for a while you can use the card. Just-” he warns, but corrects his intensity “just tell me before you buy a ticket.”

“But where will I go? I can’t visit my parents,” You say, and that listless feeling returns.

“Technically you can.”

“The energy it takes to look my father up isn’t worth knowing what he’s doing these days. And I can’t go see my mom.” You close the topic. You’re not even sure why you feel comfortable talking about them with him.

“Uh,” he hesitates, suddenly treading carefully. “Well, Ryker is in a top security prison, so if you want to you can go see your mom. But she knows that we got married… so that may lead to some questions…” he’s watching your reaction.

Again, you hear the words coming out of his mouth but it is like he’s speaking another language. Ryker’s in prison? Was my mom at my wedding? Five years is a long time. 

“Or,” he says interrupting your thought, “Or you could stay here. I could show you around the city, there are a few good things happening this month. We could go to a few concerts, catch some good tours.” He is smiling, until he catches your unease. “kidding. I’m kidding.”

You realize you did it again. You’d let him down somehow. You run a hand through your hair, hating yourself. You have to change the topic. 

“What are you going to do now?” you ask him, hoping it will take both your minds off yourself.

“Me? Well.” he thinks. “I still have the Buy More.” He sighs.

“What about the intersect?” you ask.

“And there’s that.” He nods in concession. “I still have the governor my dad made me so I won’t go nuts-” he lifts his arm to show you his watch. He sees your confusion, “it… regulates neurological stuff… so I don’t get huge headaches. I’ve actually been thinking about reverse engineering it to see if it could solve the intersect 3’s problems. I don’t think the copy I uploaded had the virus; I haven’t noticed anything different from 2.0 other than a few additional fighting techniques. Capoeira is awesome, by the way.” He smiles at you like an inside joke. When you don’t react he continues “uh, anyway. The only problem is if I start working on the governor then I won’t have one, in the off chance I can’t figure it out.”

“And that would be bad?” you finish his thought. “What about your dad? Can’t he help? If he designed it then he can make another one right?” you ask, trying to pick up the leads.

“Right… except he can’t. He died.” He says.

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“No, no no don’t be! It’s been a little while. I’m good.” he smiles to reassure you. “Anyway I’m pretty sure I’ll have to circumvent a Beckman proposal of my own soon, I can’t see the Government letting me have their secrets for free. But that might be a good thing too. Then I could work on the governor if the intersect is suppressed.” 

“So, you don’t want the intersect anymore?” you ask, wondering. 

His eyebrows knit together. “You know, for the first two years I worked endlessly to get the thing out of my head, and then for a while it was the only thing keeping my life going. Now, I…” he sighs “I guess it’s just a tool. I can be a functioning member of the spy world or society without it.”

“The spy world,” you snort. “You say that like it’s some supernatural place.”

“Well, it isn’t retail I’ll tell you that much. But the two are becoming less mutually exclusive these days just ask my family.” That makes you laugh, despite yourself. It’s too easy to laugh with him.

He comes off the high and clears his throat. “In all seriousness I’m not sure how well Carmichael industries will survive without the ‘spy’ half of our spy team. Casey pulled a lot of weight, and well, you’re on your own mission in life at the moment. Morgan and I could try to drag it along, but for some reason I don’t feel that the dynamic duo will be very impressive to clients.” He sighs. “As much as I don’t want to, I may actually take Beckman up on her offer. To work for the CIA.”

You stare at him for a minute, thinking about the history you’d read. “But… didn’t you quit the CIA?”

“Technically I quit twice, was fired the third time and put on a burn order list, so yeah, Uncle Sam and I have a complicated relationship.” He shakes his head. “But I have to survive somehow. And you heard her this morning. She’ll take me back.”

“But I thought you said you had the Buy More?” you ask, concerned.

“Yeah. You wouldn’t remember but we were pretty far in the red with the Buy More even before the whole Quinn episode drained Carmichael Industries’ remaining resources. It’s only because of Beckman’s order against Quinn that we received compensation for that at all.

“The funny thing is, it turns out the Buy More really was failing in a recessive economy before we bought it to become the draft horse of Carmichael Industries. That was the whole deal with renting part of the store to subway. I’ve even been looking into training programs to finally get our poor sales team in shape. It’d be the first time since I started working there, maybe then we could start selling some merchandise and stop drowning…” he bites his lip and stares for a minute, before refocusing back up at you, “but I don’t want to burden you with all of that, you shouldn’t have to worry about it, it isn’t really that big of a deal anyway. Sorry.”

“…so it’s all up to the paycheck.” You draw the conclusion, ignoring his apology. 

“Well, I wouldn’t say entirely, I haven’t signed anything yet.” But he doesn’t come up with a counter argument. As much as it isn’t your problem you still feel concerned about the dilemma, the responsibility somehow falls on your shoulders as if it has a mind of its own. Someone needed to fix the problem, and you were elected, popular majority.

“What about… well, you’re good at computers, what about countering cyber-terrorism?”

He stares at you.

“It would take the idea of Carmichael Industries’ spies for hire and shift the focus to be more technology based, that way your clientele would pull from a pool that needs your skills, and the risk level for you would go down. You know, so you don’t have to worry about shooting anybody.”

He’s at a loss for words. 

“What, what did I say?” you ask.

He shakes his head, and stammers “nah, mm, nothing, that’s a really good idea. Just curious—where did that come from?”

 _Don’t be so surprised that you don’t hold the monopoly on good ideas,_ you bite the words back. Instead you say “I just thought of it,” pleased with yourself.

“Oh.” He says, somewhat disappointed, and you realize this must be about something else. “It’s just that we, uh, we’ve talked about that before. That idea. I thought maybe… you’d remembered.”

Oh. Your eyebrows knit together. _Did I remember?_ You’d thought of the idea so quickly that it hadn’t seemed like a memory. But maybe there was something there? Trying to trace it back is like grabbing abstractly into darkness. You close your eyes, thinking maybe that will help. The darkness becomes physical, adding to the deep seated feeling of disorientation. But you don’t see anything, no memory; instead distantly comes the sound of voices. 

It sounds for a minute like they’re underwater, and it makes your eardrums want to pop, a phantom feeling that at first you shy away from, but then hang on to, and you’re surprised to find that clears the tone. 

“I want to quit spying.” Someone says.

“Oh, wow. Okay wow, let’s uh, let’s talk about that.” The other replies.

“Look I, I’ve been up all night and I’ve been thinking about our future, and uh you know, maybe babies…” the topic is awkward, but not as awkward as in the past.

“Doof, yeah.” The other agrees, releasing pressure.

“—and I want all of that! But I just don’t know if that future goes with the life that we’re living right now. I mean both of us have been captured more than once, every day we make a new dangerous enemy, and I just ran to the door with a _gun_ because I heard the newspaper being delivered.” 

“Yeah, parents can’t be shooting the paper boy.” 

“Look, I’m a spy.” You say, feeling more confident. “And that’s all that I thought I could be, but I realized that we don’t have to give up what we’ve built, we can just shift what Carmichael industries does.”

“Okay, shift it to what?” the light is coming on in his eyes.

“Countering cyberterrorism.” The words are clear, and bring your world colliding into itself. The shock is powerful, like vertigo and you have to grab the table with your hands to keep from reeling. 

“Whoa, hey you okay?” He asks you. His voice. The same voice. You try to nod your head, but he only adds to your confusion. “What do I do, do you need some air? Do I open a window? Do you need a drink? Do you need to lie down?”

“Chuck, stop talking.” The words are an order, harsher than you’d meant, but he obeys, tensed across the table in forced silence. You take a deep breath and cover your eyes with a hand, taking a minute to settle. _I’m sitting down. I’m in my hotel. I’m safe._ Slowly the room stops spinning, and you let the air go that you’d been holding. Once you begin to feel physically solid again you notice that your hand is shaking, and your eyes are wet. You take a few more breaths, more to even out your nerves than anything else. The tears make you nervous, it draws attention to what’s going on inside, a war of emotion that has shocked your system, made you raw. You want to run away from it, lock it up and make it go away.

The minutes pass, Chuck is amazingly patient but eventually he has to say something or he’ll explode. “What… what happened?”

You wipe the tears from your eyes, to hell with composure. “I remembered.” You say.

He smiles, but you don’t share his excitement. He notices, and the happiness is replaced by concern. “What’s wrong?”

You shake your head. Not sure yourself. You start to say something, but can’t explain yourself, so you say nothing.

Then he grabs your hand. He looks into your eyes and sees you, sees your fear, your confusion and for once it’s okay to share it with someone. “Sarah, you can do this.” It’s the only thing he says, but you know he knows the challenge, the pull you feel to escape this discomfort, and the loss you’ll feel if you do. What if you can’t do it? What if you can’t make sense of it? You’ll lose yourself. Who you were. Who you feel right now. If you shut her away you’ll never know her.

 _baby steps_ you decide, and then regret the metaphor. It’s at the heart of your battle, that war within yourself. _That isn’t what I meant_ you tell yourself _I don’t have to think about that yet._

“I was going to shoot the paper boy.” You say, picking a harmless detail.

He squeezes your hand, and looking at him you can see his bottled excitement at the truth in that detail. He nods, encouraging.

“I… I had been awake all night,” you pick another detail. You don’t have to think about why. The truths in the details are enough, the confirmation you need to know that you aren’t completely broken.

“You were there.” You say, running out of non-controversial details. He waits, as you hesitate. What happens if you can’t feel that way again? What happens if you don’t want to feel that way again?

“Chuck.” You say his name. the knot inside is riddled with shrapnel, a mess of bullets and bassinets, the realizations of something you thought you’d never allow yourself to want. “I can’t.” you say.

He swallows, eyes searching yours, pleading. As much as he’s cheering for you there’s a personal interest there for him too. You pull your hand out of his.

“Not right now.” You say adamantly. “I can’t do this right now.”

He deflates. But then he nods his head. It’s little at first, his eyes flick to the side but then focus on you, and he nods with conviction. “Okay.” He says. You realize that he’s working through a different maze, one where he knows the turns as little as you do, where he has to accept challenges on faith as well. 

“I have an Idea.” He says, and seeing your misgivings he adds “You don’t have to say yes. Just think about it first before you say no. okay?”

You hesitate, but feel he’s being honest so you nod your head.

“Come with us. You don’t have to be who you were, but come with us. We could use you. We could work together, and see if this cyber-terrorism thing works out, as partners. But nothing more. And--” He measures you, hesitating. You don’t interrupt him though. “and if you want, but only if you want, we can try to get your memories back. Just say the word and I’m on it. I promise I’ve got the best team there is, you just need to trust me.”

You weigh what he’s offered you, trying to be honest with yourself. Even though he says he’ll try not to you know that he’ll always feel that connection to you, it is the impetus to his proposition. But you’re in a labyrinth. You’re stuck in the dark. And so was he. As much as you wish you had a better direction to go in the paths had crossed, here you two were, alone at the intersection. Only you don’t have to be alone. You could run this maze together, from one point of light to the next. As partners. 

“Okay Chuck. I trust you.”


End file.
